Searching
by wirenoose
Summary: When nothing new comes to him, Molly stows the journal and closes his eyes to mimic sleep. He knows that it won't find him this night, it rarely does. Molly wonders if one has to find themself before sleep is able to find them. (Critical Role: Campaign 2)


I love Mollymauk and his spotty as fuck backstory so I wanted to try my own take on it, at least his early life in the circus. I tried to keep it as accurate as possible, piecing together what I could from early episodes. Hope you like it!

* * *

Molly likes it here with this strange array of characters. They don't ask too many questions, and if they do then they take those questions back with a stern eye from Orna or Gustav. Which is fine, he'd give them answers if he could, it's just that he can't.

They put him with Mona and Yuli sometimes, the two talk enough to make up for his silence, which Molly doesn't mind _at all_ , but he doesn't feel left out, the air isn't heavy or awkward. They're not incredibly warm or friendly, Molly feels as though that would be fake and uncomfortable if they were. They're not particularly rude to him, it comes off as banter, good natured.

Molly counts himself lucky that they seem to like him, especially given that they seem to have some tensions with everyone else.

He's sitting with them while they take care of personal chores. Yuli has a needle in her mouth while she arranges a dress in her lap, a spool of thread in front of her. Mona, on the other hand, is sharpening a dagger.

Not all of them have weapons, but he's gathered that Yuli and Mona have been through some shit. It explains a lot, and Molly can't fault them for their attitude.

It takes a good few minutes of Mona pushing her blade against the whetstone for the idea to click. Molly stands up rather quickly, nearly tripping over his tail, and jogs to his tent.

The swords are scimitars, he knows that much. He's working on using them consciously. Whenever he tries to practice with them, he drifts off, acting on instinct or through sheer muscle memory. He'd like to use them intentionally though, like to be present while doing so.

But maintenance is a good place to start.

He sits down next to Mona once more and removes the scimitars from their wrappings, gesturing with them. Mona blinks a few times before Molly points one of the blades at the whetstone and she seems to get the point.

"Right."

They take the next couple of hours, Mona talking him through the proper techniques and what he most certainly should not do. It's therapeutic in a way, he has to gear all of his focus to his blades, and nothing else.

He likes not thinking sometimes, it's nice.

When the light begins to fade, Mona packs away the whetstone.

"Best to do it with light," she says, "you'll slice yourself open if you can't see it."

Molly nods and jumps to his feet, preparing to stow the swords away. Before he goes however, he bends down to kiss her forehead in thanks. It's not until he's in his tent and rewrapping his swords that he realizes what he did.

He doesn't feel embarrassed, and judging by the fact that he's still in one piece, Mona hadn't minded. It's strange though, Molly doesn't know why he did it. He's never done it before.

He digs into his meager possessions and pulls out a small journal and his inkwell and quill. He flips to the back, past the pages about his tattoos and scars and swords, and onto a new page. There's still some light out so he lifts one of the tent flaps just enough so he can see what he's writing.

 _kisses - forehead: given to Mona following helpful deed_

Molly taps the quill against his lips a moment before writing down another line below it.

 _reason: 'thank you', possibly - no negative feeling_

Molly corks the well and wipes off the quill with his fingers before packing both away. He blows on the ink a little before letting the journal lay open to dry completely. After a moment spent just kneeling there, he exits the tent.

The twins have gathered with most everyone else, the lot of them sitting in a circle. Upon seeing him, Toya jumps up from where she's seated beside Kylre and latches onto Molly's hand, tugging him over. He ends up between Toya and Bo, and across from Mona, who is seemingly unaffected by the most recent event.

Orna starts a fire and easy chatter begins to bubble up, Molly's content to listen as they prepare for the evening.

* * *

Kylre's with Bo, taking care of some business or another, so Toya's with Molly. She sits in his lap while he does her hair. She's not singing, but humming, swaying a little as she does so. This, in turn, makes it a little difficult to get her braids set properly, but Molly manages. He's nearly done, just pinning everything place.

"Molly?" Toya asks, her voice raspy and crackling.

He taps her shoulder with his pinky to let her know that he's listening but otherwise continues with her hair.

"I got you a present."

Molly blinks, hands slowing to a stop.

"Well, I say 'got', I _made_ it. The twins helps me but they don't want you to know that, so pretend I didn't say anything." Toya giggles a little before reaching into the pocket of her dress. She pulls out something wrapped in scrap fabric and holds it out to him over her shoulder.

He breaks out of his stupor long enough to push the last pin in place before accepting the gift. Toya crawls out of his lap to sit beside him, hands braced on his leg as she smiles at him.

"Well, open it, come on."

Molly does as asked and unfolds the fabric.

By standard measure, it's nothing great.

By Molly's measure, Toya's just handed him the keys to a castle.

It's a necklace, made with glass beads of all kind of colors. Three wooden charms hang between the beads, two of them are stars while the other is probably a bird of some kind.

"You wear it like this," Toya says. The thought 'I know how to wear a necklace' dies when Toya takes his hand and loops the beads once, twice, three times around his wrist. "It's a bracelet."

With how it's looped, each charm is on its own loop, the stars framing the bird shape.

"I figured, since you don't remember your birthday, it could be today. Do you like it? I know it's not a lot but I know you like jewelry so I tried my best. That's supposed to be a bird but it came out kind of lumpy."

Molly presses a kiss to Toya's forehead and grins.

"I love it."

Toya's mouth drops open and Molly freezes.

Is that what he sounds like?

Toya grabs his face in her small hands and kiss his nose.

"You talked!" she yells. "We have to tell everybody!"

Molly finds himself laughing as Toya drags him to his feet, pulling him around camp to anyone not immediately busy.

* * *

They're in a bigger town, well, big by Molly's standards. He's at a tavern with Yasha when he spots another tiefling. Without thinking, he approaches, engaging the gentleman in conversation and giving him a card reading.

He'd stumbled upon the skill by chance. The cards are something he'd had with him when he first came to, but he'd just thought they were pretty. He'd been restless one night, his hands needing something to do so he'd pulled the cards from his deck. Like most things he's discovered, muscle memory takes over. Unlike his swords however, he's perfected using the cards.

The other tiefling is a good conversationalist, and also not put off by Yasha's presence behind Molly.

To be honest, Molly finds the goliath woman pleasant, charming even. She's new to the circus, and she doesn't talk much, but their shared silence is nice. He's actually taken over the talking part now, doing for Yasha what the twins did for him. The only difference being that he Yasha will respond. Not everyone is at ease with Yasha, Molly thinks they might find her size intimidating, but it's fine.

When Molly finishes his reading, the man buys him a drink and accepts a flier for the show.

As they leave the show, Yasha pipes up.

"So, is he coming?" she asks.

"Well, he said he would, I'd like to believe he was telling the truth."

"Oh." It's the way that Yasha says it that has Molly hesitating in his long strides.

"Did you think he was lying?"

"No, I just didn't know what you two were saying."

"We were talking right in front of you."

"In Infernal."

Molly opens his mouth to respond but finds his words leaving him. Was he? He doesn't…

That man was the only tiefling he'd engaged with since he started speaking. Tieflings are few and far between, and Molly's never had the chance to sit down with one. He knows he speaks Common, everyone at the circus does.

He supposes that as a tiefling, he knows Infernal, but he doesn't remember…

Molly rubs his temples and takes a breath.

"Right well, we still have a few more places to hit," he says, opening the door to a small bar. "After you, my dear."

* * *

The others are sleeping, he knows because the camp is ridiculously quiet.

He has a small lantern burning beside him as he flips through the pages of his journal. The front pages are filled with observations, habits he's noticed, things he's found particularly eye catching. His most recent entry is about Yasha. The two of them had been out drumming up a crowd for the show, they'd passed a flower shop and Yasha had stared just a little too long at the pre-arranged bouquets.

When they were done for the day, Molly had enough coin on hand to buy a few of the most colorful flowers the shop had. He'd managed to get them settled on Yasha's bedroll before their night of business began.

He wonders if Yasha will say anything in the morning.

Molly flips to the back pages and scans them, as if he'll earn from the last time he looked at them. He's had these things written down since before the circus took him in. He remembers feverishly scratching down everything he could remember about himself, which wasn't a lot at all really.

But there are new notes, mostly about his family, and a few interesting patrons he's seen. Since his encounter with the tiefling man a few towns back, Molly's made a conscious effort to familiarize himself with Infernal once more. As nobody else speaks it, it's a bit of an independent endeavor. He's made some progress though, and can now consciously make the switch between Common and Infernal.

He flips to the first page of scribblings.

 _MOLLYMAUK Tealeaf - no location_

 _family :_

 _mother - stories, kind? -_

 _others?_

 _tiefling - purple lavender tiefling - tattoos/snake - scars/long/overlap/many_

 _monsters-searching-hunting:_

 _bountyhunter?_

It's more or less illegible for a half page following before he calmed down and took stock of himself. Since then he's found that he can fill in the blanks with whatever he wants. His family expects nothing from him where his past is concerned, and he's never stayed anywhere long enough to need a consistent story. He's become a weaver of tales, a story here and another there, only growing more and more ridiculous and complicated. Why not?

Still, it would be nice to have some kind of tether, even a small one.

When nothing new comes to him, Molly stows the journal and closes his eyes to mimic sleep. He knows that it won't find him this night, it rarely does. Molly wonders if one has to find themself before sleep is able to find them.

If that's the case, he expected a lot of sleepless nights.

* * *

He's sparring with Yasha when it happens.

She's going easy on him and he knows it but he's still getting the hang of things so he's grateful. The motions are achingly familiar, and he's trying not to get frustrated. His body is just out of touch with the movements that he feels as though he's moving through muck.

Yasha knocks him off balance and he hits the ground. He throws his arms out and stays there a moment, taking a deep breathe before jumping to his feet.

They begin again and the metaphoric muck Molly's muddling through makes itself known in full force as he attempts to turn. He misjudges the length and location of the blade as well as his own momentum. He slices across his own stomach and winces, continuing with the movement to face Yasha.

She's staring.

There's ice on his blade.

He's an idiot.

There's only so many things that could make the scars he has. Somehow, it never occurred to him that the, frankly concerning, number of scars littering his body was caused by his own weaponry.

The only question now is what else can he do with them?

"That's...unexpected," Yasha says.

"You're telling me."

"Answers that question." She gestures to his chest with her greatsword, if it had been anyone else Molly would have read the pointing as threatening.

"I suppose it does. Shall we go again?" Molly relaxes into a fighting stance and levels his swords, a grin splitting his lips. This is something new, something he can narrow down. There's only so many names for what he just did, and he'll find the one that fits.


End file.
